Hermana Hall, Hermana Mejia and their pensionista

 

Kaitee didn't get a chance to write a blog post so I am sharing parts of her letter to us instead. 

 Ah! I love reading your email every week! It makes me so happy to hear how everyone is doing.

 I´m developing a love for latin music, Mom. Tell Dustin that sometimes I´m walking in the street or in the grocery store thing they have here and a song will come on that Dustin showed me when he got back from his mission... We are for sure going to have some latin pop jams when I come home. He doesn´t have a choice.

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING! :) I will be chilling in Bolivia thinking about turkeys and football... While I eat rice and boney chicken. Don´t take boneless chicken breasts for granted, Mom.

This week one of  my favorite families had their baby! It´s a cute little baby boy. It was really sad, the dad was in Tarija for business, but he was going to be back in time for the birth... Something happened, and he wound up coming back either a few hours later, or the next day (I couldn´t tell. I am a white girl). Poor guy was so ticked about it. He was like "You can just see the difference between these men and men in the church. Family is just so much more important to men in the church." It was cool to hear about his experience. But he left all of his bags in Tarija, the only things he brought back were two coin purses that say "Tarija, Bolivia" ... For the sister missionaries. These people are so good, Mom. So good.

 And on Thursday we celebrated 50 years that the church has been in Bolivia! There was this huge festival thing with folk dancing native to here and everything... It started out with the missionaries singing some hymns... And then when we walked off the stage, we grabbed our
 bags and walked out the door. We had a curfew to make. The life of a missionary, Mom. I will see folk dancing one day. In the future.

 CHRISTMAS IS COMING. I´ll be missing white hot chocolate, snow, and christmas songs... in English. Good thing we watched White Christmas before I left. ;) It´s funny, I´m like "It´s snowy where I´m from during Christmas..." and the people are always shocked. It makes me
 laugh.

 Can you believe I´m going on 3 months as a missionary? That´s 1/6 done! What?? How? Where did the time go? I´m going to be home before I know it.

 I love your thoughts of the week. They´re always exactly what I need! Thank you so much for always being so sweet to me. And tell Dad thank you too! And then smack my brothers on the back of their heads for not writing their little sister.

Okay, gonna try to keep it short this week because I want to email
more people...

On Tuesday, Hermana Mejia and I got to go to this thing where a couple
other sister missionaries taught us how to use Ancestry.com and stuff
to help our investigators do family history. And I logged into my
little thing, because it´s just connected with your church account,
and we have like 9 generations back on both sides of the family... And
I didn´t know. And it was so cool to see pictures and everything that
was on this site! Geneology is cool!

And then, on Thursday, I had a really cool experience where we were in
a lesson with a less-active member. Her husband is an RM and wants to
go back to church but she REALLY doesn´t want to. And so we were
teaching her and Hermana Mejia extended the commitment to go to
church. And she talked a lot, but she was speaking really quietly and
I couldn´t understand anything she said. And I just got a prompting to
share D&C 6:20-21 where it talks about being rejected for His sake and
sharing an experience where God answered my prayers with this
scripture. And I was like "Okay, I don´t know what´s going on, but I´m
just going to go for it." Anyway, so with no background context or
anything, I share this experience. And Hermana Mejia is just quiet for
a second afterwards and asks her how the story made her feel... and
then she kept talking quietly and I didn´t understand.
Turns out, she was talking about how in the church when she was
active, there was some drama with the relief society and stuff... And
my story was perfectly relevant and everything.
It was so cool to see that the Spirit knows the truth of all things,
and when I don´t know what´s going on, he really will guide me to know
what to say.

Anyway... The church is true, the book is blue... Bolivia is crazy,
but pretty dang cool, honestly. Just... Way cool.

I love you all! Have a great week!!

My spanish is coming slowly, but surely. People tell me it´s good....
Apparently I say "um" a lot... Like... a lot, a lot. It´s wicked
frustrating sometimes, but I really am blessed... I can communicate
what I need to.

Hermana Mejia and I get along really well. We joke around that she´s
the latina version of me, and I´m the gringa version of her... We´re
similar in many ways. I think sometimes she forgets that I´m new, but
I´m learning so much from her. She´s such a good trainer, she really
is.

Keepin´ it short today because I want to email a lot of people this
week. I suck at emailing. My poor family. I love you, I promise.

Wednesday we had a huge conference of like 3 or 4 zones that took 6
hours. Halfway through, President Willard called up an Elder and said
"Elder Green (I don´t remember what Elder it was) is going to give my
talk now. Using the spirit." And then he sat down. And the Elder had
to give a talk. In Spanish.

Later he did the same thing with his wife, Sister Willard and guess
who they called up. That´s right, Hermana Hall. With two weeks in the
field.

BEING A MISSIONARY IS AN ADVENTURE.

Anyway, so I gave my talk and it went okay. I love President and
Sister Willard. They are seriously so legit.

Then, on Thursday, we visited the Villaruel and Martinez family. They
live together, and are both less-active. Carmen Villaruel and Laura
Martinez are sisters. Carmen is a single mom of 3 girls, Yedali, who
is 16, Debani, who is 13, and Sayuri, who is 10. The oldest two are
pretty rebellious, particularly Debani. Laura is 8 months pregnant and
I don´t know how she does it. It´s bloody hot here. And she still is
always doing everything for herself... She still washes her own
laundry, her house is always pefectly clean... She´s a rockstar. And
she has a 3 year old, and her husband as well.

Anyway. This family is like my favorite group of people in the world.
And one day we came over and only Carmen´s 3 girls were home... So we
worked on Personal Progress with them and just started talking. Disney
princesses came up and.... I asked about Anastasia. Because I really
love Anastasia. And Sayuri, bless her heart, found a copy of it and
was like "This?" and my inner 10-year-old came out and I got way too
excited.

Fast forward. We´re talking with Laura and teaching her and
whatever.... And Debani and Yedali come in. And Yedali comes in, says
hi to my comp., says hi to me, and puts a piece of paper in my lap. I
get home, I open it, and there´s a drawing of Olaf that Sayuri traced,
a little drawing of Anastasia and Demitri that she drew and colored,
and a huge poster sized drawing of Anastasia that Yedali sketched.

Yedali is like WICKED talented. And I love her. With all of my
corazon. Seriously, their drawings made me so happy. The Villaruel
girls for realsies have my heart.

And then I had to give a talk on Sunday. Aaaand long story made very
short... My Spanish could use some help.

And that is what is new with Hermana Hall.

And I love you guys.

A lot.

Okay.

Bye.

Happy Halloween!!

Okay, so Halloween isn´t a thing here. I mean, it is.... But not
really. I´d tell you how exactly it´s different, but to be honest, I
am not sure. It´s smaller here, candy isn´t really a thing... I saw
four trick-or-treaters in a little group... and my pensionista gave me
some candy that said Halloween on it. That´s Halloween here, haha.

The biggest thing that´s happened this week is that our apartment is
freaking overrun with these nasty bugs called "grillos" They`re HUGE
and they jump like nobody´s business. We´re getting really good at
killing them though. It´s an adventure. Oh, Bolivia.

I also saw American Football on TV for like five seconds. It was a
Broncos Patriots game and the score was 17-13 Patriots, I think. I
didn´t think American Football is a thing here, but it was on, so
maybe it´s a bigger thing than I thought.

.... I guess this week was pretty boring. But after this, me and
Hermana Mejia are making empanadas! Empanadas are the best thing that
has ever happened to me, probably. They`re just like a tortilla bready
thingy with cheese in the middle but... I don´t know. I think they put
crack in it.

Uhhhh.... Yeah. That`s all. Just learning how to be a missionary,
trying to pick up on the Spanish, figuring Santa Cruz out. I love it
here. I really do. It`s such a beautiful city.

And I love being a missionary! Every time I´m in a lesson, attempting
to testify in Spanish, I´m like... Dang. This church is so true... It
really is.